XeLaTeX PDF Version 2.0

Question

I tried to set the PDF version to the latest 2.0 standard with:

\special{pdf:majorversion 2}
\special{pdf:minorversion 0} 

XeLaTeX seems to ignore this and produces the PDF with default 1.5 version according to Acrobat reader. Has anyone an idea how to set version 2.0?

Answer 1

This here works fine for me with texlive 2020 on windows:

\RequirePackage{expl3}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\pdf_version_gset:n{2.0}
\pdf_uncompress: % to check the pdf
\ExplSyntaxOff

\documentclass{report}
\begin{document}
abc
\end{document}

\pdf_version_gset:n{2.0} works also with other engines, so I prefer it over the xetex specific command.

The pdf then starts with

%PDF-2.0

hyperref sets the version too. So if you use it you can

• reset the version after loading it
• or use the new pdfmanagement and set the version there

\RequirePackage{pdfmanagement-testphase}
\DeclareDocumentMetadata{pdfversion=2.0,uncompress}
\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\begin{document}
abc
\end{document}

• or set the version with hyperref. Be aware that hyperref can only do it if no package or code before has already opened the pdf, so you should check if it worked.

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage[pdfversion=2.0]{hyperref}
\begin{document}
abc
\end{document}